When we view the defender as a "small sillohuette" large ship - it really seems to make sense in cost, and as to how it should fit in list building.

True - a small based ship is much harder to trap between rocks and other ships, like you can do with the spray, so its harder to hit. in gereral a small based ship is harder to shoot at compared to large-based ships.

Its hard to put this into account math-wise.

Final conclusion: for its cost, the TIE Defender is mediocre at defense...

3 agility, barrel roll available, and 3S/3H for health is mediocre at defense for its cost

Fixed that for you since you applied the quote out of context.

Final conclusion: for its cost, the TIE Defender is mediocre at defense, and poor at attack. You'll need to repeatedly abuse its white K-turn to make it cost effective. The math and numbers aren't perfect, but they are very reasonable. Changing the underlying assumptions won't substantially change the results here. I hope this helps put things in perspective.

Sorry, this statement seems somewhat ridiculous to me - It's got equal agility and one more shield than the tie advanced, which is well known for being a durable tanky ship

The TIE Advanced is slightly more durable per unit cost than its little brother the TIE Fighter. Tankiness, by at least my definition, refers to the ratio of a ship's defense to attack. So yes the TIE Advanced is certainly a tank, having good durability but poor attack. Tank vs. glass cannon is used in this game to determine target priority. Glass cannons get shot first.

Cost is the great equalizer. It's impossible to talk about a ship's effectiveness without considering its cost, otherwise we would all be flying Han Solo, and the academy TIE would never see play.

That's why I listed every single ship. The reference point only linearly changes the numbers, it has zero effect on the relative rankings or relative values of one ship to another.

I was answering the question put forth by the OP, see the thread title. If you want a more comprehensive analysis of jousting value, see my Lanchester's thread. The TIE Defender is about the same as the TIE Advanced for pure stat line jousting efficiency.

Durability Check 1.1:

Lets assume the Defender got a Hull Upgrade. Now its 33 points, just like the Bounty Hunter:

Firespray: 0.7111*(4*1.25 + 6)/3 = 2.6

TIE Defender: 1*(3*1.25 + 4)/3 = 2.5833

So with Hull Upgrade both ships have the same staying power while having the same costs.

Lets assume the Defender got a Shield Upgrade. Now its 34 points, only 1 point more then the BH:

Firespray: 0.7111*(4*1.25 + 6)/3 = 2.6

TIE Defender: 1*(4*1.25 + 3)/3 = 2.6666

Now the Defender even exeeds the durability of the Spray for only +1 point cost compared to it.

But I think a Hull Upgrade would be the best investment here.

Well yes - this would even more reduce the cost/attack values. But I find it interesting that the Defender has virtually the same staying power as a large-base ship.

Now I want to see what durability values we can get out of the Phantom (yes I know, you need its slot for different upgrades)

TIE Phantom (cloaked): 1.4194*(2*1.25 + 2)/3 = 2.13

with Hull Upgrade:

TIE Phantom (cloaked): 1.4194*(2*1.25 + 3)/3 = 2.6022

This would even exeed the Firespray's durability.

with Shield Upgrade:

TIE Phantom (cloaked): 1.4194*(3*1.25 + 2)/3 = 2.7205

Looks like we have found the winner

The Bounty Hunter is PS3, so to be fair you either need to send the extra 2 points on the TIE Defender to get the PS3 version, or you need to drop the BH cost by 2 to get the equivalent PS1 cost.

3 proton bombs still kill it in a single round. k-k-kaboom!

It also has meh upgrades, a predictable dial, no 1 forward, and costs LOTS more than most small ships with equivalent firepower. Big ships work because crew upgrades are phenomenal and they can take a lot of fire. That's why I see it not working. Agility is a bad concept throughout the game.

Canon upgrade is not really meh - as with time there will hopefully be more, but the HLC is very strong, and an Ion cannon on a defender should be pretty awesome. Missiles are also starting to become more and more interesting with the variations we've seen - Ion pulse missiles, whatever the proton rockets are - easily missiles are the most diverse of secondary weapon systems. Those two upgrade slots means that the type of role you want for a defender can really be well customized.

As for a predictable dial? no - i disagree, it's only predictable when flown by someone who feels they must immediately pull a green to recover from a red, and a player that uses the red in the first place. Given the defender dial - and taking predator - you'd rarely ever actually need your action (for offense) - it'd be a really mean ship I think.

As for Cannon Upgrades. HLC is good, but really expensive on a ship forced to close distances rather than build or maintain them. Ion cannon will be good, but Canon has nothing on the usefullness of Crew. EPT's are nice but every ship(for the most part) gets those. And Missiles are overpriced.

Final conclusion: for its cost, the TIE Defender is mediocre at defense...

3 agility, barrel roll available, and 3S/3H for health is mediocre at defense? What more should it have? Auto 4 evade tokens? 5 agility?

Ah, the trolling evade token!

@ Juggler

I always lover your posts.

I'm not sure I would value a shield to be 1.25 of a hull. about 1 in four hits are crits (Ignoring marksmanship and other special rules and upgrades) but a crit isn't really as bad as two hits. It can be as bad two hits only in the worst possible case. There are tons of crits that have little or no effect on the game. Those that are really annoying are no wear near as annoying as simply having the ship die. Even when it is a crit that you totally hate, the ship usually doesn't last that much longer in the game anyway. If if got critted on there is a better than fair chance that your pretty damaged anyway.

To take an example from Star Trek Attack Wing (I know mentioning this game is an X-wing sin). One crit in that game forces you to roll a dice every turn and on a crit roll your ship is simply destroyed. You can spend an action to change the effects of the card. But most players of that game don't spend the action because the ship probably doesn't have long for this world anyway. I know the analogy isn't perfect. Things die a lot faster in Attack Wing, but it does illustrate my point.

WTF is Star Track?

As part my Lanchester's thread calculations, I ran some average numbers and came up with durability modifiers for different dice rolls. Normalized to 3 defense dice these are:

4 dice: 1.4194

3 dice: 1.0000

2 dice: 0.7111

1 dice: 0.5166

I count shields as being worth 1.25x a hull, so using a TIE Fighter as a reference point, that gets us some normalized numbers.

[edited to rank in terms of absolute durability, and fixed the B-wing]

Firespray: 0.7111*(4*1.25 + 6)/3 = 2.6

YT-1300 (named): 0.5166*(5*1.25 + 8)/3 = 2.45

TIE Defender: 1*(3*1.25 + 3)/3 = 2.25

TIE Phantom (cloaked): 1.4194*(2*1.25 + 2)/3 = 2.13

Shuttle: 0.5166*(5*1.25 + 5)/3 = 1.9372

E-wing: 1*(3*1.25 + 2)/3 = 1.92

YT-1300 (ORS): 0.5166*(4*1.25 + 6)/3 = 1.90

TIE Advanced: 1*(2*1.25 + 3)/3 = 1.833

B-wing: 0.5166*(5*1.25 + 3)/3 = 1.59

Y-wing: 0.5166*(3*1.25 + 5)/3 = 1.51

A-wing: 1*(2*1.25 + 2)/3 = 1.5

TIE Bomber: 0.7111*6/3 = 1.42

X-wing: 0.7111*(2*1.25 + 3)/3 = 1.30

HWK-290: 0.7111*(1*1.25 + 4)/3 = 1.24

TIE Phantom (not cloaked): 0.7111*(2*1.25 + 2)/3 = 1.07

Z-95: 0.7111*(2*1.25 + 2)/3 = 1.07

TIE Fighter: 1*3/3 = 1

TIE Interceptor: 1*3/3 = 1

Durability per equivalent PS1 cost, normalized to the TIE Fighter, tells a slightly different story. The ranked list is [edit: fixed the B-wing here as well]:

A-wing (refit): 1.5*12/15 = 1.2

Shuttle: 1.94*12/20 = 1.16

TIE Bomber: 1.42*12/15 = 1.14

TIE Advanced = 1.833*12/20 = 1.1

Z-95: 1.07*12/12 = 1.07

Y-wing: 1.51*12/17 = 1.06

A-wing: 1.5*12/17 = 1.06

Firespray: 2.6*12/31 = 1.01

TIE Fighter: 1*12/12 = 1

HWK-290:1.24*12/15 = 1.0

B-wing: 1.59*12/21 = 0.91

TIE Defender: 2.25*12/30 = 0.9

E-wing: 1.92*12/27 = 0.85

YT-1300 (ORS): 1.90*12/27 = 0.84

X-wing: 1.30*12/20 = 0.78

YT-1300 (named): 2.45*12/39 = 0.75

TIE Interceptor = 1*12/18 = 0.67

TIE Phantom (not cloaked): 1.07*12/23 = 0.56

Conclusion: the TIE Defender is slightly below average, as far as durability vs price is concerned.

The attack per PS1 equivalent cost, normalized to a TIE Fighter is:

TIE Interceptor = 1.74*12/18 = 1.16

X-wing: 1.74*12/20 = 1.04

Shuttle: 1.71*12/20 = 1.03

TIE Fighter: 1*12/12 = 1

Z-95: 1*12/12 = 1

B-wing: 1.74*12/21 = 0.99

TIE Phantom: 1.74*12/23 = 0.91

A-wing (refit): 1*12/15 = 0.8

TIE Bomber: 1*12/15 = 0.8

E-wing: 1.74*12/27 = 0.77

Y-wing: 1*12/17 = 0.71

A-wing: 1*12/17 = 0.71

TIE Defender: 1.74*12/30 = 0.70

Firespray:1.74*12/31 = 0.67

TIE Advanced = 1*12/20 = 0.6

YT-1300 (named): 1.74*12/39 = 0.54

YT-1300 (ORS): 1*12/27 = 0.44

HWK-290: 0.42*12/15 = 0.34

Conclusion: the TIE Defender has below average damage output per cost.

The most competitive ships (B-wing, TIE Fighter, X-wing, YT-1300, Firespray) don't necessarily need great durability per price, because they can make up for it with good attack per price. The YT-1300 of course has a 360 arc which helps it significantly.

Final conclusion: for its cost, the TIE Defender is mediocre at defense, and poor at attack. You'll need to repeatedly abuse its white K-turn to make it cost effective. The math and numbers aren't perfect, but they are very reasonable. Changing the underlying assumptions won't substantially change the results here. I hope this helps put things in perspective.

Of course we are going to abuse the white K turn, thats the whole point . only bwings and turrets csn compete with it if abused. After the first joust that's all it's going to be is K turns till the space hippies are blown out of their space priuses.

I rock a space STI, thank you very much.

The jousting math wing is only a rule of thumb, I wouldn't put too much on it. It does give an idea roughly if something is overpriced, but then again, it doesn't take a lot into consideration.

I've found the Defenders very durable. I don't run more than one in a list, as I think they are very expensive, but I could see 3 of them, or 2 and a shuttle being pretty nasty.

I like the idea of an HLC on them, at least, on a Delta. With the Rebels using a lot of PS4 ships, I don't see the PS3 Defender being very good, but both of the named pilots are really great. I just think that if played well, like an interceptor, the Defender will be a beast, but if played like a Firespray and Jousted too hard, it'll break apart.

I've had luck so far, running it up an edge at speed 5, and then 4 k turn, and screaming into the rear of an enemy formation guns blazing. with Outmaneuvre, this has been very successful. My defender of choice is Vessery so far, as the Focus cost for the PS8 Defender and the sheer quantity of shields on Rebels has made his ability lackluster sometimes. With a Falcon heavy build, it would be devastating, especially with PTL.

The amount of difficulty to kill it just depends on how long it takes the rebel player to give up

Overall, I would say not that hard, not harder than anything else... Its just a ship, and a good shot or two makes it go away.

i've taken Squints lately with combinations of Hull upgrade and Shield Upgrade which puts me at 1 dmg point below the Defender and the Squints have been popping quite easily so i don't see the Defender being any different.

I have to agree with Darth Evil. It is just a slightly tougher Squint, so you have to be careful. I try to race them as flankers, and never go straight in or head to head if I can. Basically, using it like a Squint, but with more guns and missiles and shenanigans. The reason I like it is because of the heavy presence of Falcons, and they always shoot back. This makes the ability to take an extra hit or two pretty valuable, while also making Outmaneuver pretty powerful, as I have always been out of arc.